Eighteen Years Ago Today

I was experiencing my first home birth.  Rebekah Jane was ushered into this world in the privacy of my bedroom.  I loved the experience, and I love my little girl.

Rebekah had a fine covering of blond hair unlike any of my babies to date - it was a soft blonde, not the near white of my other "dutch" babies.  And she had a nice amount of it too!  When she was born she was mad at the world.  The midwife commented on her little attitude even.  But she was a very good baby...most of the time.  Very early I wrote in her baby book that poem about the little girl with the curl...and it was very true.  She was such a good baby, content to do whatever I set her up to do whether it was hanging out in her highchair or sitting on a blanket playing with her toys.  She rarely complained.  She was adorable chubby as a baby, but that didn't last long.  She was probably our chubbiest baby and resisted any attempts at a bottle of baby food until she was over a year old.

Rebekah's First Birthday!

All dolled up for a wedding!

She was my latest walker, as she waited to walk until she could do it perfectly.  She spent a long time perfecting her fall before she was willing to take those first steps.  Just after learning to walk, she fell off our coach and her arm was broken.  She didn't let it keep her down for long though.  She was walking again in no time.

She was a beautiful child - lovely hair and a face that had the look of a princess in the making.  She was very loving and showed signs of being an artist at a very early age.  She was very creative, even in the areas of mischief!  I have lots of funny stories about the adventures of this little girl, who we lovingly called "Becka Baby" until the nick name was no longer appropriate.

She was quite the little leader.  She loved to come up with creative ideas and get the other kids, especially Rachel, involved with her fun play.  They would spend hours and hours playing house or riding bikes or trying to build forts in our woods.

Rebekah has grown into a tall, graceful young lady.  She still has remnants of her childhood showing up here and there - she loves to goof off and loves taking time to play with girls much younger than herself.

Her favorite activities have always been drawing and  creating things.  Her jewelry is amazingly original.  Her drawing covers many different media, but she excels at caricatures, cartoon and anime!

She loves to create her own style of clothes. True to her artist's nature, many of her clothing choices have flair!  Bright colors, feather accents and a fedora hat are just a sampling.

She is really good with her younger brothers and sisters, and is always ready to give her dad a hug when he comes home from work.  She has made rag dolls for Esther, which Esther loves more than anything.  She also makes little cloth dolls that look like ginger bread people too!

One of her other talents is face painting, but it doesn't stop there.  She's been known to paint hands, feet, ankles, shoulders, biceps   Her temporary tattoos are amazing!

She also has quite the sense of humor.  She can really hit the nail on the head, especially with puns.  She loves to laugh  and be a little goofy - she's good for our family!

Although she's turning eighteen, and has become a beautiful young woman, she still has the heart of a child - innocent and loving.  She wants to grow up, but all in good time, my dear, all in good time!

This is the first of what I hope to be Birthday Highlights - I'm going to make a blog post dedicated to each child, talking about their childhood, character and interests.  I hope you enjoyed it.

Thanksliving day #2 and 3

First of all, I am thankful for found things...I lost both an old coin and the memory card for my camera on Tuesday, and just could not locate them!  In the last few minutes, Jeremy found the coin and I found the memory card!
This is the 1943 dime I found earlier this week - I have had an offer to purchase this from me for $2 already!

The second thing I am thankful for (I missed yesterday) is my wonderful husband.  I am so thankful that God in His sovereignty put a road block in my way, showing me that I needed to break off an engagement.  After some time of bitterness, I once again returned to my Lord, and told Him that I would never look for a husband again...he's have to hit me over the head with one...and he did...2 weeks later!  My friend of over 4 years was God's sovereign choice for me. I am so glad that God loved me enough to not let me go my own way, but chose a much better path for me.  Daryl is the perfect person for me - calms me down when I'm freaking out, encourages me when I'd rather not even try, dislikes shopping when I would break the bank and over spend, and so much more! 
Now on to more mundane things...the last few days have been crazy for me - we were swamped with orders, so I have been working extra hours to help Jessica, sew inserts, cut fabric orders, and getting cuts ready for sewing.  I am sooo looking forward to the day when I no longer have to work, it's so hard on my family when I must work extra hours, especially hard on Esther. 
On top of that, I committed back in September to doing the activity/learning portion of our church's Keepers At Home program - teaching about sewing and home industry.  I had no idea when I committed to it that I would actually be going out of business, but isn't God's timing a little humerus at times!  So I prepared a 15 minute talk about different sewing skills, using them to bless our family and home, giving gifts, and potential for income.  The most important thing I shared in my opinion is that we should not take our husband/fathers income for granted - he works hard to supply our needs, and often never gets a say in how the money is spent...and sometime we spend it on frivolous things or misuse the things we have purchased with his hard earned income.   We can make the most of his income by being frugal, making things from scratch, purchasing materials and supplies for crafts second hand, giving hand made gifts instead of purchasing them, and shopping at second hand stores for our clothes and home things.  The evening was so much fun - I didn't get nervous at all, and had a great time teaching the 6 - 8 year-olds how to crochet...I am hoping a few of these girls come to my Sit and Knit tomorrow!
Yesterday was especially busy - it started out with work, then Jessica, Rebekah, Rachel, Reuben and I headed to court!  Jessica was in a car accident back in September where she had hit a stopped car from behind - she couldn't see it in time due to the intense rain, and she lost traction due to all the water on the road.  The ticket the police sent in the mail was for "following too closely" - which she wasn't doing...so she contested her ticket, and the judge threw it out as she was, by definition, not doing what the police officer charge her with.  That was a great learning experience for all the kids - Rachel was even called as a witness as she had been a passenger in the vehicle!  We also got to watch many other traffic violation rulings...it was awesome!  She was 1 of only 2 that was successful in contesting the traffic violation.  Rebekah used the opportunity to put her artistic skills to practice and made this wonderful sketch...

Her address?????

Yesterday morning, Reuben was writing a letter to his CEF (Child Evangelism Fellowship) teachers, Holly, and brought it to me in an envelope.
He asked me if we could take it to her.
I told him that she lived too far away for us to take it to her, but that we could mail it to her, and that we just needed to get her address.
Reuben was quiet for a few moments, with a very puzzled expression on his face...then he said "Why would we need to get her a dress?"
[caption id="attachment_577" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Always trying to keep things under control around here.."][/caption]